Posted on 03/27/2019 8:07:12 AM PDT by Sopater
Lance Corporal Jacob Miles Lagoze was deployed to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 as a combat camera in the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. He was assigned to shoot and edit footage of the combat for media networks, recruitment videos, and other propaganda.
The United States had already been at war in Afghanistan for seven years when he enlisted in 2008. Three years later, along with Marine cameraman Justin Loya, Lagoze had filmed what the Corps wanted. “But then we kept shooting,” he said.
After his service time in the Helmand province, Lagoze took his footage and arranged a 70-minute documentary, “Combat Obscura.” The documentary, released online and in select theaters on March 15, is unlike any footage ever released. The raw and unfiltered collection of videos reveals the troops, not as sanctified American heroes, but as boys calloused to morality and psychologically damaged by the intense paradox of boredom and battle.
The brave who sacrifice their lives for God and country are not angels with guns. Their language is steeped in obscenities, they roll blunts in front of the local national children, they joke at the deceased innocent. “‘Combat Obscura’ is a brutally honest look at the blurred morality of the war in Afghanistan,” J.D. Simkins wrote for the Military Times.
A jarring scene shows a Marine finding an Afghan who had just been shot. “Hey buddy, how are you doing today? Look like you just got f–ked.” He roughly flips the body over. “Just like a deer.” Realizing that the deceased was not a member of the Taliban but most likely a shopkeeper, another Marine says, “This is no good for people to see,” and they plan to hide the body.
Such behavior could have constituted criminal charges for these Marines, but by the time the videos surfaced, the period in which they could have been convicted had passed. It was because of these videos that “Combat Obscura” was never approved for release by the Marine Corps.
The Marine Corps argued that Lagoze could not release the film, claiming that because he used military equipment and was on deployment, the film was government property. When Lagoze submitted his footage for review, however, the videos did not violate security standards, and he was allowed to maintain possession of the footage.
“[Americans] sanctify the military and sort of glorify it,” Lagoze told NowThis. “Combat Obscura” shifts the standard from the military to the troops themselves.
Heroism fades in the cloud of smoke hovering over the compound. The boys’ maddening boredom during patrols and downtime in the compound is relieved by ungodly amounts of marijuana supplied by the locals. “Luckily for us, Afghanistan’s a hash farm,” a Marine says in one clip. Afghanistan’s cash crops are opium and hashish. In Lagoze’s words, deployment is basically a long camping trip where you are occasionally shot at, and you smoke weed to pass the time.
During one of these smoking sessions, Lagoze recorded a Marine saying, “You think the Marine Corps are a bunch of perfect people that don’t do anything bad, don’t curse, and they’re just really squared away killers. And then, the Marine Corps is filled up with the most f–ked up individuals I’ve ever met, just like me, you know?”
According to Stars and Stripes, Lagoze said this was the only soldier in the film who requested his identity to be blurred. The others had no qualms about their experience and actions being laid bare to the American public.
In the calm of the dawn, an officer prays: “Whatever the enemy has planned, by the grace of God, they’re not gonna succeed. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth…” Rapid gunshots drown out his voice as the sun rises and the scene bleeds into an intense firefight with the Taliban in the plain below the compound. Rifles fire past Lagoze’s camera, but the bullets sail into the distance, anticlimactic poofs of sand rising from the impact.
BOOM. A Marine beside Lagoze’s camera is shot by sniper fire. Lagoze himself is wounded by shrapnel from a grenade launcher, but that’s “just a booboo,” he says. Lagoze runs with the squad of Marines rushing the wounded to the “bird,” the Medevac.
The enemy is always in the distance. As the film progresses, you begin to wonder what’s the point of chasing the ever-receding horizon. Another firefight, more casualties, more swearing, more marijuana.
“I don’t want any more combat,” Lagoze says, after his shrapnel wound is bandaged.
“How you feeling?” a Marine asks.
“Scared,” Lagoze replies. “Fine now, but when it was happening, I never thought that they’d get that close, hitting us in the compound.”
There is no end in sight—it is a job with no goal except to eradicate the Taliban. But then what?
A Marine is shot in the head during another firefight from the compound. It’s just routine, the blood spilling from the soldier’s head onto the shoulders of the comrades who carry him to the bird.
“Almost home, buddy, almost home.”
The Marines of 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment pulverize romantic perceptions of war. Yet why does human depravity surprise us? During the film the viewer, initially aghast by the Marines’ vulgarity, subconsciously begins adopting their callousness that is necessary to survive the bullets. If callousness is so easily developed from one’s couch, how much more would a Marine’s morality become contaminated while submerged in the Taliban’s threshold?
“Almost home.”
After the soldier is safely aboard the bird, the Marines walk quietly back to the compound. They sit in their comrade’s blood and their own sweat, silent, and smoking.
I expect that this film is likely a one-sided presentation of propaganda, but it is probably a change from the one-sided presentation of propaganda that we’re used to seeing.
Sounds like an updated movie version of “Sand In The Wind”..............
6 trillion and 5,000 of our guys.
“So girls can walk to school.”
Nah, I’d say that’s a really bad trade.
Best punishment for that country is to be responsible for THEMSELVES.
Same for Iraq and Syria, too.
AND Iran.
Sounds like an opportunity for people comfortably ensconced on a couch in an air conditioned room to sit in judgement and condemnation of men facing tension and situations most humans will never be subjected to.
Actually, there are plenty of accounts from WWII about atrocities our own troops carried out. War is hell. That is why it is a thing to be avoided.
However, it is becoming more and more mechanized and roboticized. The reason the anti-war movement during either of the persian gulf wars never got any traction was that not enough troops died. And with every war of this type, we will almost certainly have fewer and fewer deaths.
Heck, I think you may be safer in afghanistan than in Detroit.
Very few say war is good.
But war is often necessary.
War Is Hell - as if we didn’t know it to start with.
We don’t chose war because it is hell, to reward any brutality within it, but in spite of that fact.
My dad, when he did talk, told of things he saw in Europe with Patton’s Third Army, no different than this.
I’ve herd Vietnam vets say the same.
Nothing bothered me except when the marines got shot.
I wouldn’t care if they used dead Taliban as mulch.
Everyone KNOW they curse a lot. Who didn’t at that age.
They joke about death. You wouldn’t?? People with cancer joke about cancer. Should we lock them up.
It concerns me that smoking so much pot could get them killed but it is what it is. It’s not like they were shooting heroin.
Geez..everybody this isn’t the 1950s anymore. Ask a kid whose pop is an alcoholic if he wishes pop would smoke pot and eat lots of potato chips instead of beating the #### out of them.
Want an even bigger shock!! I grew up with mafiosi and did a few small time things myself.
They’re not actually as classy and dignified as Vito and his son Michael.
They’re sick animals.
Who the hell expects what we see on the big screen to be real life?!?!
As for killing a civilian, you have to get hard to this kind of thing or you won’t survive, i would assume
And YES. I’d hide the body too. Hell i’d bury it somewhere fast.
It’s war. Not a scout trip to the woods.
I would like them to be more able to admit if they need to talk to someone when they get home.
Too many WWII vets killed themselves because it was considered “weak” to seek help.
Either way, God Bless the Marines and the entire American military.
They’re not perfect. That’s what God is for.
To quote Nicholson, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!”
War has always been barbaric.
One can question if- hell STATE for a fact that - they never should have been over there, while still respecting the patriotism, heroism, and sacrifice of those who have gone.
We had NO business in Iraq or Afghanistan, nothing has been gained, much lost; those who made the decision to go have hurt this country more than any enemy. But our soldiers are heroes and deserve to be treated as such.
Anybody who ever says ““YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!” to my face will get shot in the gut (so they can die slow) if I can get away with it. Anyone using, or even thinking, those words should be skinned alive and left to roast in the desert.
Most people couldn’t handle the truth.
But if you’re a sick #### who would do that to someone, enjoy it :)
WTF do you want me to tell you? :)
People sleep peaceably in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
There is nothing romantic about war. Horrible atrocities occur in all wars. Stop denigrating those sent out to protect the CIA’s poppy fields, er bring peace to Afghanistan.
The horrors of ware are to stay on the battle field. As an aviator I did not see the brutality that my 03xx bretheren did on the ground, but I saw plenty of the secondary order of effects. Villages burning as ethnic cleansing was occurring, buildings built in Sarajevo for the Olympics with bullet holes and impacts from the shelling. Entire settlements wiped out of existence. Troops I had trained came back from Iraq and Afghanistan (those that did come back) with their own stories but would not talk to the press, just fellow Marines.
They did what they needed to do and the public has no need to know the details.
So Marines are not all angelic, and some of them can become inured to the brutality of war and become callous. There's a news flash.
Marines are human beings, like everyone else, and are imperfect. Some come pretty damn close to the ideal, and some don't.
They fight, better than just about anyone else. And they win. That's their primary job. Some of my best combat Marines were guys that probably would have ended up in jail in the outside. Some even did. But that doesn't diminish their courage in fighting, nor does it diminish the generally high moral character and honor of other Marines.
Semper Fi, and I hope some other Marines give this little weasel a bit of payback some day.
Good heavens! They are aghast at the vulgarity and callousness of Marine’s during combat as they and their brothers in arms are killed and maimed by barbarians who worship death? They are aghast at the marijuana usage?
It must have been like looking in the mirror for liberal media and socialists. Except, of course, for the part where the Marines were actually in mortal danger, something no liberal would ever consider. They only like to put others in danger and enjoy the suffering and even death. We all read the liberal blog posts whenever conservatives die.
Conservatives already know what happens in war. We already know it’s hell and why. We just don’t believe in condemning the brave souls who risk theirs for the rest of us. And we believe in redemption and forgiveness, a phenomenon completely outside of their lexicon and reality.
This is just another lame attempt to shock conservatives into betraying our heros. They are heros and if I ever see this footage, it will make me weep for them and pray harder for them, not despise them or think less of them in any way.
For starters, they are my sons who served in the Army and Navy. And after being in war and occasionally in combat, they are far less damaged by war than students of colleges and universities are by the deliberate social engineering experiments than they suffer through at the hands of people far more callous and amoral than the taliban. And just like the taliban, they really believe that the damage they do is virtuous.
6 trillion and 5,000 of our guys.
“So girls can walk to school.” a really bad trade.
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